


7 Birthdays

by we_are_the_crystal_gays



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Depression, Oneshot, Post SBURB, Sadstuck, and thats no way to live, angst and lots of it, based off of the post ending snapchats, basically everyone is just mentioned, because i need more john centered angst in this world ok there's not enough of it, it's basically john's thoughts as he goes through sburb and then after sburb, john needs hugs and no one knows that he needs hugs, so hes sad 20 years old and hugless, spoiler heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 16:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8539957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_the_crystal_gays/pseuds/we_are_the_crystal_gays
Summary: 7 years is a long time, especially when you have a lot of emotional bullshit that you're refusing to deal with.
7 birthdays is 7 too many when you dread it more than anything.





	

**13.**  


Today’s the day! You’re determined to make it the best day of your life. A new game, awesome gifts from your friends, venturing from technically being a teenager to ACTUALLY being a teenager, it all looks good, and it’s going to get even better. Everything is good. Great, even. You dodge cakes and your dad all in good fun, as always. You open some gifts from your online buddies, as always. You look across your room at all of your posters and smile, as always. You make it a mission to grab that game. Today’s the day. Today is going to be amazing.

Today is not what you had planned. Today is a steep downhill slope. A cliff, even. It all happened so fast. Time blurs together. Is it still today? Had it actually been years? You want to think it had been years, too much had happened for it to be a single day. You feel older. You feel tired. You don’t want to be here. You smile anyways. You make a conscious effort to stay upbeat for their sake, and in all honesty your own as well. Fake it ‘till you make it, right? You’re afraid of what will happen if you let everything catch up to you, so you just keep going and don’t look back for even a second. You keep going to get out. You keep going for them. You keep going so that they live. If you die, they might die. You can’t let more of them die. 

**14.**  


You try not to think about it. You’ve been trying not to think about it ever since it happened, but today especially. You don’t want to think about it. It was a year ago, it’s not relevant- except it is. Today has become a complicated day in your mind. Today is the anniversary of your birth, but also your death. It’s also the anniversary of his...

No. You refuse to think about it. It’s your birthday. That’s all.

That’s not all, though.

You just don’t want to think about what else it is. 

It’s fairly easy to push it away this year. It’s only a slight tug at the back of your mind, simple enough to ignore. You have people with you and you’re playing games- you’re distracted. You frown for a moment when you see cake. You laugh as it’s tugged away as quickly as it came, the holder being chased by your hyperactive, partially canine friend. Things are okay this year, you suppose. You don’t feel the same excitement anymore, and it takes a lot of energy to not feel terrible, but it’s okay. Your friends are here. It’s okay.

**15.**  


You spend the day with people who care about you, which is nice. They all have ghost butts and/or are part animal, which would have been the weirdest fucking thing two years ago, but they’re your friends and you love them. And even if they weren’t there to celebrate your birthday with you, you love all of your friends over on the meteor as well. You sit down with Jade and watch Con Air, and obviously it’s going to be great, because it’s _Con Air_. 

Except it fucking _sucks_. It’s so dumb and cheesy! How did you not realize it sooner? For some reason, this flicks off some sort of switch inside of you. You’re suddenly so irritated at just _everything_ , and you’re not completely sure where it’s all coming from. You’ve been sitting around on some stupid boat for two years now, and for what? What good have you actually done? What good are any of you doing? You fight with Jade, and you let a lot of things out, some of which you didn’t even know you had pent up. Some of it you had been thinking about for a long time. You’re sick of being on this boat. You’re sick of everything- and then the note. 

When you notice it, you peel the slip of paper from your back and look at the glowing orange text for a few moments, not entirely comprehending the actual words that the letters comprised. Then you read it.

“my darling son,” it began, “if you are reading this it means you finally came to your senses on a way shitty movie. by realizing cage sucks you have taken your first and biggest step toward not being a total embarrassment to the egbert family name. speaking of which you might want to crack into one of my metric fucking tons of shaving cream i have for some reason and bust that nigh invisible teen stache before it starts to become a problem. egbert men dont cotton to whiskers as you know good and god damn well. i didnt bust my fatherly ass to raise no bigfoot. im proud as shit youre my son or whatever. next stop: figuring out mcconaughey is trash. you can do it junior.”

One joke, one little note that wasn’t meant to hurt you, wasn’t meant to mean anything except being a little jab at your taste in movies, makes everything just snap apart. Whatever you had been holding in must have been held together by a thread, because apparently, this was the last straw. It was just so _thoughtless_ , so _inconsiderate_ , and you were _livid_. He knew that this was the anniversary of his death! He knew how much your dad meant to you! How could he mock the notes that he took so much time to put around the house, something so personal between the two of you- something that had been a highlight of your life for so long? Something that you would never get to experience again because he was fucking _dead_? He was gone! Dead! He was never going to come back, and you were never going to see him again, and every single goddamn thing in this god forsaken house was a reminder of that fact! Real funny! Hilarious, even! Really goddamn super, right?

Right??

You scream for a long time, and you even surprise yourself. Jade is disappointed and confused, and you’re too angry to be disappointed. You’re too angry to even think, or do anything other than scream at some shitty watermark in the sky that _somehow_ , for the time being, is entirely responsible for all of your pent up bullshit. 

You eventually tire yourself out. You wake up. You don’t mention the incident again. 

Your birthday sucks. 

**16.**  


By your 16th birthday you’re pulled back into everything, and the three year long trip across the yellow yard is over. It’s funny, you always thought about what you would do for your super cool “sweet 16” party. Apparently the answer to that is teleporting through time and space.

Not exactly the party you planned out in your mind when you were 12, but it works. 

You sort of reunite with your friends, but it’s weird when you’re uncontrollably zapping everywhere. It’s fine, you reassure yourself. You’ll see them later. 

But then, of course, they die while you’re off beating up an insufferable green douche in a cape. You weren’t even there when it happened. You’re never there when people need you most, you’re always off in the wrong place while everyone you love risks their lives to actually do what you’re supposed to do. Judging by the carnage, it was a massive battle, and you were off beating up an assholeish skeleton with the unsettling hobby of drawing horrible yaoi. Great job Egbert, you really have your priorities in check.

In all honesty, you can’t even bring yourself to cry- not even when Rose dies right in front of you. It’s all happened before. You didn’t cry then, and you certainly don’t now. The prolonged apathy almost scares you, you know you should feel something, you know that something isn’t quite right. You’ve always been an emotional guy, but your emotions have rules; weird contradictory rules that leave you feeling completely numb at times, and like the world is crashing down on top of you at others. Everything’s a blur again, a series of events that are happening, but you can’t quite comprehend or string them together until later, and when you do you try to forget. Now you have to push whatever you’re thinking aside and fix it, because they’re counting on you. You’re given a list of objectives written in blood, meant to fix it all. All you have to do is follow the instructions. Soon, everything falls into place. You hadn’t written the instructions, though, so it’s not like you can really take credit. 

When you see them again, your breath catches in your throat, and you can find yourself able to feel again. You hadn’t realized exactly how much you missed them until you saw them, and were talking to them, and they were there and alive and everything was good again. You talk to them and you’re just so _happy_ , you almost forget that there’s still so much left to do. Almost.

You all eventually huddle up and agree on a game plan, except it’s more of a “listen to Vriska and do what she says whether you agree or not” kind of situation. But either way, you know what you need to do, and you don’t think you’ve ever been so ready in your life.

You kick that stupid fish queen’s _ass_. 

It’s even better when you see them again, worn out and beaten, but grinning and victorious all the same. _He’s_ even there, pipe, hat, necktie and all, and the realization of how much you missed him hits you like a ton of bricks. You hug it out, and it’s the best thing in the world. 

You’re happy, and you’re determined to keep it that way. Your friends are here, you’re here, and the realization that it all was actually over slowly dawns on you, but it seems more like a dream. All of this feels like a dream- that you’ll wake up at some point back in the middle of the game, on the prospit ship or your quest bed or hell, maybe even back in your room on the dawn of your 13th birthday. The past three years don’t seem real, like someone could pinch you and it would all be over. That all of your friends wouldn’t actually be there, and maybe most of them had never even existed. But no, it’s real, you’re real and this moment is real, you’re worn down and beaten _and you just won the game_. You walk to the door in front of you, turn the knob, and swing it open. It’s finally over. You finally _won_.

**17.**  


You think you’re starting to get better. Correction: you think _everything’s_ starting to get better. Everyone seems so happy now, and you’re no exception. After the game, you all had ended up on what you all call Earth C. You did what you had to do to repopulate the planet, and then a hop skip and a 5,000 year time jump away, you end up living comfortably in the world you had created. You’re dubbed co-ruler of the human kingdom, and everything is going pretty smoothly. 

It’s a bit strange living like this. It’s not quite like your life before the game, but it’s not like the trip on the prospitian ship, either. It’s sort of a weird mix between the two, with all the benefits of living outside of the game without the old earth, and all of the benefits of the game itself with no impending disaster and looming threats of death. In other words, it’s comfortable here. You’re comfortable here. 

When your birthday rolls around, everyone comes to celebrate it with you, and you actually look forward to it. It’s the first time you haven’t actually dreaded the day in years. Four years, to be exact. It’s nice to feel excited again. It’s nice to have so many of your friends be so close to you, rather than across the country with no way to get to you. This way you can fly wherever, whenever, and it’s amazing. You spend the day with people who care about you. This time, it doesn’t end with you napping on your driveway, which you’re grateful for.

Your birthday doesn’t suck so much anymore.

**18.**  


Your 18th birthday rolls around faster than you anticipated. Wasn’t your 17th like 3 days ago? Now you’re technically an adult by old Earth standards, which supposedly means more responsibilities and the like. But you suppose that this doesn’t really to apply to you, because you’re already partial ruler of an entire race, and co-creator of the very universe you’re currently in. So yeah, fuck the arbitrary concept of coming of age. That mission was accomplished long ago, in your opinion. 

Almost everyone comes to celebrate your birthday with you again, and it’s a lot like the previous year, except you’re all a little bit older and a little bit more used to your new life. And some of you are married, so there’s that. It’s crazy how fast everyone seems to be growing up, no matter how much like some weird distant relative who some poor, awkward child runs into at some obscure family gathering it makes you sound. It’s true, though. It’s so nice to see everyone living happily and getting along, and it’s so nice to be a part of it. 

You check up on Terezi, who’s been away looking for Vriska for some time now. At this point, you wonder if she even made it to the new universe. At the beginning of the search, you were pretty confident. Now, you’re not so sure. You hope Terezi does find her, though. You can see how much she misses her. 

You get a bit worried when you see the giant ominous black hole in the background of Terezi’s pictures. You’re pretty sure that that’s definitely not supposed to be there. You hope it doesn’t end up being a problem later on. Part of you knows that it will be. You ignore it for the time being, and just try to focus on your birthday.

Overall, your birthday still doesn’t suck, for the second year in a row. 

**19.**  


Jade is the only one who visits you this year. It’s fine, though, everyone is just busy. They have their own lives to lead, you can’t expect them to be there every single year. They send you online birthday wishes, and you should be grateful that you even got those in the first place. They’re just busy. They still care about you. 

Even dad and Jane couldn’t stop by, so you and Jane exchange birthday messages, and they promise to celebrate both of your birthdays the following weekend. Apparently, Jane couldn’t get a day off even for her own birthday, but you suppose a big time corporation can’t just run itself. You wish that you could see them though, you hadn’t in a while. They had never actually lived with you to begin with, since they had their own place to stay and didn’t want to intrude on your space, as it was your house from your original session (Plus, it’d be a bit awkward to be dad Crocker in such a situation, surrounded by old items that belonged to a man that’s technically him but also technically dead). However, the first couple of years they had been over to visit enough for it to almost feel like they lived there, and with the start of the corporation, the number of their visits dropped drastically. You can’t really complain, though, it was never something they had to do in the first place.

As a matter of fact, you hadn’t really seen any of your friends very often for a while. They all had responsibilities of their own, ruling kingdoms and becoming rich and famous and overall really successful and other similarly great things. Meanwhile, you were just cooped up in your room. You had no one to blame but yourself for that. There are moments where you kind of miss the game, where you were doing super great heroic things that saved lives and timelines. Then you snap yourself out of it, because that notion is dumb and you know it. You died. Everyone died. Multiple times. The game was hell for everyone, and your 5 minutes of fame aren’t nearly worth what it put everyone through. Don’t be fucking selfish. And it’s not like any of the heroic actions that you had done were actually planned out by you beforehand; none of it was ever truly you. You were never actually great. You just led yourself to believe it because you’re dumb and give yourself too much credit and-

Back to the birthday. You have to be happy on your birthday. You promised yourself that you’d be happy on your birthday.

It’s getting harder to be happy on your birthday.

You’re grateful that Jade came to visit to take your mind off of things. You try not to be sad that no one else came. They didn’t have to come. They sent you plenty of messages. That’s enough. It should be enough. 

You feel shitter and shitter with every moment that passes where you think that it’s not enough.

**20.**  


No one visits this year. You can’t help but let it get to you. Had they forgotten about you? Did you even matter to them anymore? You had started to isolate yourself over time and they were busy, it’s not _their_ fault that you’re just dumb and don’t have a life. It still stung that they didn’t make much of an effort to pull you back into the group. What hurt more is the fact that you felt entitled enough to expect it from them. They had no obligation to do anything, you’re being an angsty asshole. It’s all on you, and you have no right to complain.

This cycle of thoughts just makes you isolate yourself more.

What if you had just been a jerk all along and hadn’t realized? What if you were just a burden on the group, and it was a relief to them that you finally removed yourself? They wouldn’t feel that way, right? They don’t hate you, do they?

They seem so happy together. You see their stories on snapchat, of all of their adventures around the world and their dates and their eventful lives, and you can’t help but reflect on your own life. The one that you made for yourself, created yourself, was brought upon you by no one but your own damn self. An empty house filled with memories of your dad and a dusty piano. You haven’t touched the thing in years. Actually, you haven’t touched much of anything in years. You just sort of switch between your bedroom and living room, with brief trips to the kitchen when you get hungry enough. On occasion, you bring yourself to go outside. You never really go too far.

Even as ruler of the human kingdom, you feel kind of worthless. You never do much, everything that needs to be handled is generally handled by dad Crocker. You’re just sort of a technical ruler, with the title but not really the actions behind it.  
You wander aimlessly around your house, and for some reason, you bring yourself to go outside of your routine and go into rooms that usually go untouched. You first venture into the study.

The room is set up in the same way that it was now seven years ago, with your father’s desk, a hat rack with a few hats still on it, various pictures on the walls, the safe, and of course, the piano in the corner. Everything was coated in dust, like it hadn’t been touched in years. And well, it hadn’t. You bring yourself over to the piano and take a seat, pressing a few keys experimentally. 

You play the song, that one song that your dad had taught you so long ago, that you hadn’t played in seven years. You don’t even know why you do it, you just do. The haunting piano refrain makes you think about your dad, and you decide that today was probably one of the worst days to play that particular song. You get up and leave the study.

As the day goes on, your dad stubbornly holds his ground at the front of your mind, and you end up taking various pictures around the house, reminiscing on various memories. You’re in a strange state of mind- you feel numb, sad, and content all at once. But this is okay, it beats the anxiety and overwhelming negativity that you had felt this morning. Numb, dull sadness is okay. But that numbness doesn’t last.

The numbness melts away to annoyance as soon as he shows his ugly, skeletal face to you. He’s smug, as always, and you can’t shake the growing need to punch him in the face. You exchange a few messages with Caliborn, your anger growing considerably every time you see his stupid face and his stupid text and his-

Oh no.

_Fuck_ no.

He did not just threaten the fucking bunny. It was such a dumb thing to get pissed over, but he’s just such an _insufferable piece of shit_ that you really can’t help yourself. You make a threat of your own. He doesn’t seem to care. You find yourself searching for the nearest hammer, fuming over something so tiny, so insignificant, that seems so big in the moment.

You remember your 15th birthday. You know you should calm down. In all honesty, at this point you just can’t bring yourself to fucking care. 

You finally wrap your hands around one of the remaining hammers in the house and go back to your phone, a notification of a new message lighting up the screen. You bring the hammer down. The screen goes dark. You drop the hammer, and leave the house. You don’t return.

You remember your 15th birthday, now five years ago. You remember your anger, uncontrollable and exaggerated as you stood and screamed at the sky, at nothing until you let it all out. You find that this is a similar anger, one that fills you and makes you want to scream about everything that has gone wrong as of late, everything that sucks and everything you’re mad at and _everyone_ you’re mad at. There is one difference, though.

This year, it’s not going to end with you napping on your driveway.

**Author's Note:**

> mmmmMMM gotta love that John angst am I right?
> 
> Feedback is always greatly appreciated!!


End file.
